Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, with reference to paragraph 25 of the impact assessment of the Government response to the consultation on support for community energy projets under the feed-in-tariff scheme, for what reason those changes have been designed to deliver no additional overall deployment of solar PV to 2020-21; and if he will make a statement.

The changes to the community provisions of the Feed in Tariff (FITs) scheme announced on 13 November, have been designed to encourage a shift from commercial and household to community ownership of renewable electricity projects, rather than bringing forward any new additional deployment. The policy has been designed in this way to allow us to manage costs for consumers within the Levy Control Framework (LCF).

This approach is in line with wider work being taken forward through the Community Energy Strategy1 and the Shared Ownership Taskforce2, to unlock barriers to community ownership of renewable electricity projects. The Community Energy Strategy estimated deployment of community projects of all sizes to range from 500MW to 3GW by 2020, with a central estimate of 600MW.

[1] Community Energy Strategy (January 2014) (DECC). See: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/community-energy-strategy

2 The Shared Ownership Taskforce includes representatives from the renewables industry and the community energy sector. They have developed a voluntary approach to increasing shared ownership of new, commercial onshore renewables developments. For further information see: https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/shared-ownership-taskforce